On the tv, there is the same damn Humane Society fundraising ad.

They run it continuously on a cloying loop over my one nite of Sunday British mystery.

Which means that I have to get up and leave the room.

And it is a very long commercial and I’ve practically memorized the script.

The grainy frame of each animal is seared into my brain.

Even the indy-pop song that they ruthlessly play in the background haunts me.

The sights are beyond heartbreaking:

The matted German Shepherd chained to a dirty doghouse in a snowstorm.

The pittie mixes (so many of them), tied up in a field, with their sweet, square heads shaking, eyes vacant.

And the the mangy emaciated kittens crying from large litters left in a ditch.

Almost every kind of human neglect imaginable.

And I simply can’t watch. Most nights, anyway.

My daughter the therapist says that it’s okay not to watch. I take her advice.

Somehow I was raised to believe that it was my responsibility to look at all of the world’s atrocities, always, and to never avert my gaze.

But I know those horrors. I’ve had wonderful pets.

But still there are the Saturdays that I seriously need to go to the shelter and hold the kittens.

Those days don’t occur very often.

Many times I can’t muster the energy – I feel too raw and tender and I feel like a voyeur to the loneliness and despair.

But not this Saturday. Not today.

Today is an optimistic day, and after almost 9 years, it’s like my 9th kitten life has been activated.

And as my husband and I timidly tiptoe down the rows, the smell is too much. I’d forgotten the circus like urine odor that cats have.

It smells like fear.

Being early summer, there are quite a few tiny mewers, so many fuzzy frolicking critters born for our individual perusal. Some are of the same litter, others crouch alone in the corners.

I see the tuxedo types (my fave), black and white and elegant. There are the chubby grey girls with green and yellow eyes. The endless tabbies.

And they all are waiting.

Waiting to be picked up – and held, and tickled, and for at least few moments, to be nuzzled and whispered sweet nothings.

Loved.

Taken to a small special room with lino floors for a decision: To love or not. To be loved or not.

And most times they will be put back in their cages.

But this kitten day is for me; I want the full-on kitten experience. The Zen purr and proud little tail and sassy demeanor.

I need it.

In truth, the smell is overwhelming. The activity of the volunteers distracts me. I need time alone with one little kitten soul.

I hold a few and each one is dear, Each might be a possibility for Yin.

But then as we are leaving, I see this scrawny, not-as-cute, sort of pathetic black kitten, wearing a cone of shame around his neck.

The plastic cervical collar is attached with masking tape and smeared with snot. And a tiny mew escapes him as we pass.

His eyes are begging, pleading for me to do something, anything. I’m not sure he knows what. But he is desperate.

I move along the row and hold the other little tabbies and greys, long haired and shorthaired. One with one eye.

And from across the room the little Cone Head Boy silently mews in his cellblock.

He sees me.

And I see him.

I’ve long thought that a dog is a buddy, one to play with and walk and get all athletic with. He teaches me loyalty and fidelity and to believe in the big, bad world, even when it has had its way with us.

A kitten is a friend. A kitten shows you how to be in the world. He shows you how to inhabit your body, to hold the beauty, even as the grace is capricious.

A kitten will teach you to listen to your senses – to trust your intuition. To take care of your own needs, no matter the inconvenience.

To nap. To snack.

To stretch as high as the body will elongate, and then beyond.

And to snap the body back, like elastic, and come down ready-freddy.

A kitten will teach you that you may not be greeted at the front door, but behind another door, you will be appreciated for whatever mood you’re in.

Not only that, he will show you that there is grace in those moods, not forced, but small and real, like his tiny spine.

Not only that, he will show you that there is grace in those moods, not forced, but small and real, like his tiny spine.

A kitten will tread across the plain of my shirt to reach my neck where he will make himself a kitty boa.

And oh the ecstacy of a purr. Even that word!

His heart thrumming softly, a silken thing threaded loosely around my neck. He is better than any weighted blanket and he sure beats any yoga eye bag.

He is the Yin. The breath and the pause. The inhale and the exhale. The full body release.

Embodiment of distilled spirit.

His sandpaper tongue that wants to kiss with the only tool he has.

The tiny, black fruitleather paws, so perfectly constructed for traction and poise.

And the claws; the remnants of jungle evolution. He is a worthy adversary for my boy Huckleberry, given time.

In a male world, a cat teaches that strength lies in cunning and quick thinking, and flexibility, not all muscle.

He is the tiger that remembers that jungle. And he wants to whisper to you about the birds that nested in the mangrove trees, and the elephants that roamed across the green plains.

He is my reminder to slow down, to breathe.

To connect to the animal self I inhabit. The part that gets forgotten in the digital, distant, no-touch world.

The kitten knows this: the yarn ball. The feathery bird that is pulled on a string and so difficult to nail down.

It is the lick of yogurt on the funnel tongue. The scratch of the rough sisal that feels like ecstacy.

It is the trippy mixture of catnip that has been marinated especially for him.

My dog is my Yang, and I am in deep need of a Yin.

Aren’t we all?

Anyway, that Saturday night, after my visit to the shelter, I thought about that gruesome commercial on tv.

And I reckoned that there were hundreds of little cone-headed black kittens in our county, and thousands across the state.

And yet, there was one named Pippin.

Pip for short.

And he was dropped off on Weaver Dairy Road.

And now he is mine.

Pip the Yin.

*we took the cone off as soon as we left the building